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THE WAR IN AMERICA; 



What England, ok the People of England, may do 



TO RESTORE PEACE 



By e^y: ROBBINS. 



lOllRESSEIl TO AI.I. Prill.ANTHROPISTS, ANI> LOVERS OK PEACE IN KNOLANP. 



"Nell) Yorft. 
M. B. RHOWN & CO., PRINTKUS, 2(il anp 'iO,T WILLIAM STKKKT 



THE WAR IN AMERICA.* 



I do not come before the English people to complain of their 
conduct in the past, or to dictate for the future, but simply to 
suggest ; to suggest to a people who, as I believe, already sin- 
cerely and deeply hate slavery and deplore war, how, in my 
opinion, they may aid in the removal of the former, and shorten 
tlie duration and prevent the recurrence of the latter. 

I cannot but believe that there are in England many philan- 
thropic men, probably the majority of the better classes, who 
would gladly use their influence to put down slavery in any 
peaceable way, but whose sympathies are repelled by the means 
which the North is using, (a class whose feelings were recently 
expressed by an eminent statesman, and friend of freedom, 
at Edinburgh) ; men who regard war as a great evil as well 
as slavery, and who, while they love the slave, do not hate 
his master, or, at least, would not wish to see him extermina- 
ted ; but who would see slavery put away, if it can be done 
by peaceable means, by moral force, for the sake of the master 
as well as of the slave ; both being victims of the evil. To 
such, and indeed to all Englishmen, I would address myself 
with all christian kindness ; feeling that the people of Eng- 
land and of America are, and should feel themselves to be, 
brethren ; and that no unkind words or uncharitable thoughts 
should be indulged in by them toward each other. 

What is the cause of the war now raging in America ? Be- 
lieving that the Southern people knew best why they rebelled, 
when the war first broke out, and before the mails were stopped 
between the North and the South, I took much pains to examine 

* The following was designed for delivery as a lecture or lectures in England. But 
the author not being able to make the proposed journey, it is now laid in this form, 
before the English people, with the hope that it may be the means of doing at least 
some good. 



Soutlierii newspapers of all classes, to endeavor to get at the 
real state of the Southern mind. And the great cause held out 
generally as producing and justifying the rebellion was, what 
they regarded as the attempt of the North to tyrannize over the 
South, by prohibiting slavery in new States and Territories. In 
a Presbyterian newspaper (the Telescope, published in South Ca- 
rolina, of the date of May 17th, 1861), I found the case so clearly 
and strongly j)ut, that I shall beg leave to quote some para- 
graphs from it : 

" We understand that one leading principle of Lincoln and 
" his party is, that there shall be no more slave territory ; that 
" slave-holders, with their slaves, arc to be excluded from all the 
" territory belonging to the United States. 

" Now, this determination of the Republican party to exclude 
" from all participation in the public Territories a wealthy and 
"•powerful class in fifteen States — a class that has done as much 
" as any other to secure the territories and support the Govern- 
" ment — is the principal reason, we believe, which led to seces- 
" sion, and, what is more, it justified secession. For Avho could 
" expect that fifteen, or five, States would remain in a union 
« whose burdens they were compelled to bear, but from whose 
" public lands they were to be forever excluded ? The South 
" has paid its money to survey the territories and divide them 
« into counties and sections ; it has helped to open military roads 
" (a costly labor,) through the territories ; to build forts, court- 
" houses and other public buildings, — to keep up a standing army 
" to defend the territories against the depredations of Indians 
" and others. The South has assisted in paying the expenses of 
" Governors, Judges, and other civil officers in the territories. 
" The South, too, willingly sent its men to Mexico, many of them 
" slave-holders, and by blood and treasures secured a large 
" addition to the territories of the United States. 

" And now, after all this expenditure of blood and money to 
'« secure territory and have it surveyed, — to keep up forts, roads, 
'* a standing army. Governors, Judges, etc.' — after all, to be coolly 
" told by Lincoln and his party that they could have no part or 
" lot ill ihc territories, was outrageous injustice, and any body 



" can see that it must eventually load, as it has leil, to a rupture 
" of the Government." 

Of course, every one uudcrstauds all this, notwithstandiu-,' the 
injured tone assumed; understands that the Southeruer couhl jro 
to these territories on exactly the same conditions as the North- 
erner — viz., with as many servants as he pleased, pi'ovided lie 
paid them just wages for their labor. But the Southerner 
wanted peculiar privileges above the Northern man; he wished 
the privilege of going into these territories and having his work 
done for nothing, forcing others to do it for him; while the 
Northern man must pay for his work, or do it himself: and Ije- 
cause the North was not willing to grant them this unjust pre- 
rogative, they set up a pitiful complaint, as if suffering grievous 
wrong, and resolve to fight for it. 

Indeed, that the war was begun on the part of the South, and 
is continued in the interest of slavery, seems evident from the 
fact that the intensity of the secession feeling prevails in dif- 
ferent States, and sections of States, nearly in proportion to tlie 
slave interest, or the relative amount of slave property, in those 
several States and sections of States. Thus, South Carolina, 
which has been foremost both in secession and in war, has, in 
proportion to its population, the largest slave interest; there 
being in 1860 only a little over 291,000 whites to 402,400 
slaves ; while in East Tennessee, where the loyal feeling is 
stronger, and the opposition to secession more general, than in 
any other part of the South, the amount of slave property is 
very small. With a white population almost equal to that of 
South Carolina — viz., about 282,000 — East Tennessee had in 
1860 only 26,504 slaves; or one slave to nearly eleven white 
persons. Between these two extremes (South Carolina and 
East Tennessee), the intensity of the secession feeling will be 
found to vary in the diiferent States and districts pretty nearly 
in proportion to the slave interest; showing very clearly that it 
was for the benefit of slavery that the Avar, on the part of the 
South, was begun and is continued. 

Now, what England wants, and what the world wants, and 
what humanity requires that we should seek, is peace — present 



and future — permanent and abiding peace ; not a temporary and 
treacherous peace, liable at any moment to be broken by war, 
disturl)iug the commerce, and breaking up tlie industry of the 
world. But, slavery being the cause of the war, there can be no 
permanent i)eace in America till slavery is removed. Among 
the anti-slavery people of the North there is an intense and in- 
extinguishable hatred of slavery, which can never be suppressed 
till the slave is made free. Among the slave-holders of the 
South there is an equally intense and inextinguishable hatred of 
abolitionism, which can never be suppressed till abolitionism 
ceases to be antagonistic to the interests of the South — that is, 
till there are no slaves in the South. 

If slavery is to continue in existence, there are but two condi- 
tions supposable ; viz., either, first, that it exist in union ; or, 
second, in disunion. The first is the aim of the Democratic or 
pro-slavery party of the North. Their object is to reestablish 
the Union upon the basis of slavery, leaving the cause of the 
war still in existence, and liable to break out at any moment 
into a new war. This is very much as if we should undertake 
to stop up the mouth of a volcano and build a city upon it. We 
might stop up the volcano — it is at least conceivable — but we 
should only produce a future earthquake, that would engulf us. 

But the South could not probably be induced by this party, if 
it should come into power, to reenter the Union except on con- 
dition that slavery be for ever guaranteed, and strengthened 
with enlarged privileges. Thus, the links that bound the North 
and the South in such a reunion would be the links of the chain 
that also bound the slave in more cruel and hopeless bondage, 
so long as that reunion should last. 

But, in the second place, suppose there jje disunion ; suppose the 
South gain her independence, with slavery still in existence ; — it 
will leave all the elements that produced the war alive and active ; 
the inextinguishable hatred between slavery and freedom, — only 
increased tenfold by disappointment on the part of the North, 
and by the bloodshed and desolation inflicted on the South. The 
whole Nortli would probably become intensely anti-slavery ; and 
wo sliould have two nations, as diverse in feeling and interest 



as possible, — Avith antagonistic social elements, — lying side by 
side for fifteen hundred or two thousand miles, with notliing but 
an imaginary line or a river between them. Along the whole ex- 
tent of that line the slaves would ever be seeking lo escape. It 
would be a daily and hourly occurrence ; and the escape of every 
slave across that narrow boundary would be a new cause of irri- 
tation. Fire-arms, which almost every Ijody in the South 
carries, and often uses, and many in the North, at least on the 
frontiers, carry or possess, would be liable to be used by the pur- 
suers and the defenders of the fugitives. Thus, quarrels Avould 
break out ; blood would be shed ; and all this could scarcely fail 
to lead to frequent war, interrupting your industry and com- 
merce by blockades and other appliances of war. 

Slavery is in its essential nature belligerent, aggressive ; 
slavery is latent war, and liable at any moment to become ac- 
tive war. It is war in that stage in which the con(|uered are 
held down by the conquerer. With the South as an inde- 
pendent slave power, lying side by side with the North, the 
peace of the world would be in far greater danger tlian it ever 
was with the old Union; than it ever would be with one free, 
united people ; for as separate, and necessarily antagonistic 
governments, both the North and the South would maintain 
great standing armies. They would fear each other, and each 
would, seek to rival and surpass the other in the magnitude 
and strength of its land and naval armaments ; and if these 
should ever make common cause against European nations, it 
would be a most formidable array. They would become two 
great military powers. Wars between themselves would de- 
velope their strength. Nations, like individual pugilists, the 
more they are exercised and trained, the more they feel their 
power, and the more dangerous they become. And the wisest 
and best thing that we, who seek the peace of mankind, can do, 
is to seek to remove the cause of war between the North and 
the South; and that cause, I say again, is slavery. With 
slavery abolished, even with the North and the South 
united, though a great, it would be comparatively a peaceable 
nation, because the great motive and cause of aggression would 



6 

be removed. Every one acquainted with the facts knows that it 
has been under the influence of the South, and of slavery, that 
most of our foreign troubles have arisen. This is true of the 
last war with England, the war with Mexico, and with most of 
our diplomatic difficulties with England and other nations. The 
South, and the supporters of slavery in the North, have always 
been bitterest against England, because they believed that it 
was through English influence that anti-slavery principles were 
propagated and spread in the North ; and if they do not just 
now give utterance to their hatred, it is only for the sake of 
expediency. 

For union, for the mere purposes of political power, I have 
nothing to say. For freedom and peace, I have everything to 
say. Union is but an instrument, or means, of good, or of evil, 
as it may be used : Freedom and Peace are goods in themselves. 
A union based upon slavery, aggressive, belligerent, domineer- 
ing, would be an unmitigated calamity to the world. A free, 
peaceable, and just union would be a blessing to the world. 

If, then, the removal of slavery be necessary to the establish- 
ment of peace, on a firm and lasting basis, how shall this re- 
moval bo eft'ected ? By war? War and slavery are twin relics of 
barbarism ; and it has always seemed to me that to undertake to 
destroy slavery by the power of war was very much like casting 
out devils " through Beelzebub the prince of the devils." And yet, 
if war is to be the policy, certainly it should be an emancipation 
policy. This is the only redeeming feature of the war. And 
indeed, if Avar is ever right, then I believe that war to extermin- 
ate American slavery is right. Thousands of the anti-slavery 
people of the North are fighting for this, and not for more politi- 
cal union and power ; and if others are carrying on the war 
from baser motives, it is to be regretted, for I believe it is a 
great crime ; and yet, may we not hope that Providence will 
bring good out of their evil, and use them as instruments to 
bring about his purposes of mercy — the emancipation and ele- 
vation of the oppressed ? 

And yet, it always seemed to me that we should at least have 
first tried a lifl'orcnt course : tried other means than war. 



When the war first broke out between the North ami the 
South, I urged upon my countrymen tliat it wouhl be better, 
more christiaulike, and in the end cheaper, to olTcr to the South, 
through the mediation, and with the influence of England and 
France and other nations, the probable expenses of war, as 
a remuneration for their slaves ; and thus remove the cause of 
war: — that it would be better in the end, even if we had to pay 
the full market value of the slaves, or four hundred million 
pounds, or even a sum equal to the national debt of Eugland, 
than it would to sink it in war, besides destroying hundreds of 
thousands of lives, and incurring all the demoralization that 
war would bring ; and perhaps becoming involved in foreign 
quarrels.* I felt most deeply upon this subject, not only for 
the sake of the freedom of the slaves, but for the present 
and future peace of America, and of the world, and the 
cause of civilization and social advancement, which war inter- 
rupts. 

In an address which I prepared upon the subject, I estimated 
that, if the war should continue two or three years, the cost to 
the North could scarcely fall short of four hundred million 
pounds, which would pay about four times as much for each 
slave as England paid for her slaves in the West Indies. 

To prove to them that the people of England and other Euro- 
pean countries would gladly lend their influence to such a 
scheme, I quoted the expression of various European writers 
upon the subject ; among others, the genial and philanthropic 
words of the noble President of the Association of Social 
Science, uttered at the meeting in Dublin in 1861, and which 
you will pardon me for recalling to your recollection : 

« Casting our eyes," said he, "across the Atlantic, and re- 
« garding the lamentable conflict that now shakes the great 
" Union of our kinsmen, surely without ofl"ense to cither party 



* The plan of removing slavery by compensation was advocated and urged upon 
the people of the North, by Elihu Burritt, years before the war broke out, as a means 
oi preventing war. But it was not heeded : and events have proved, as is often the 
case, that the neglected philanthropist was wiser than the prudent statesman. 



8 

" we may at least breathe a wish, that the least of war's evils 
" — its heavy expense — were bestowed upon the redemption of 
" the colored race, upon the amicable removal of the greatest 
" obstruction that exists to American prosperity, the greatest 
" blot that rests on the American name." 

Had such a course effected no other good, it would at least 
have shown to mankind that we stood upon a great principle, 
and that we aimed at freedom, at justice, and at peace : and it 
would have secured for us the respect and sympathy of all Chris- 
tian nations ; because they would have been compelled to say, 
and to feel, that we had made a magnanimous and just offer to 
prevent war, and to secure the freedom of the slave. 

But the people of the North, believing that they could put 
down the rebellion in a few weeks or months, and at a cheaper 
rate, accepted war. And noAv, that so much has been sunk in war, 
it is vain to hope for anything of this kind being done. Reluc- 
tantly we are compelled to say, that war must take its course. 
And the recent elections in the North show a great increase in 
the strength of the war party. 

But shall war be the only agency ? And shall we try to do 
nothing to shorten its duration ? I repeat, because of its great 
importance, that if, as we have seen, slavery is the cause of the 
present war, and if its continuance will be liable to produce future 
wars, the great aim — the greatest aim — of all of us who wish for 
peace, as well as of all friends of the slave, should be the re- 
moval of slavery. This object is in importance paramount to 
every other connected with the war. Compared with this, all 
other means and ends are temporary and superficial. Every 
class in America and every class in England should feel the in- 
cxpressi1)le importance of this consideration. And while war, 
which every Christian man must deplore, may bring emancipa- 
tion, yet are there not other and peaceable means that may be 
brought to bear, that will hasten the result, and shorten the 
Idoody work of the sword ? If so, then, as philanthropists and 
Christians, we are bound to make use of them. 

Wliat can England do, then, to accelerate the advent of free- 
dom and peace? First, she can refuse ever to recognize a slave 



9 

government. The Southern people have oonstiinlly enlertuincLl 
the hope of being ultimately recognized by England, and of 
forming a treaty of commerce with her, and so of becoming rich 
by the sale of cotton ; and this hoi)e has sui)portcd and stimu- 
lated them in fighting for slavery ; and if still held out, it will 
probably induce them long to struggle and prolong the war. 
Let England give the South distinctly and clearly to under- 
stand, in so many words, that she can never recognize a govern- 
ment based upon slavery — can never enter into commercial 
treaties with them ; and it would have a powerful tendency 
either to induce them to institute a system of emancipation, or 
else to cease to fight for the establishment and independence of 
slavery. 

It has been said, that in a question of national recogni- 
tion you cannot take into account the character and social 
institutions of the people asking recognition — that you have no 
right of discrimination. But is this correct? England cer- 
tainly would refuse to recognize or form treaties of commerce 
with a nation of pirates, or a government based upon the prin- 
ciple and the practice of cannibalism. You would discriminate. 
Is it said that the recognition of the South as a slave govern- 
ment, w^ould be no worse than the recognition of the Federal 
government with slavery existing in it ? But the Federal gov- 
ernment was not based upon slavery : it only tolerated it in 
certain States, not as a national institution, but as belonging to 
individual States; while the greater part of the Union was free. 
Moreover, the recognition of the Federal government, and of 
other governments in which slavery exists, are acts already 
performed, and could not conveniently be receded from; whereas, 
in the case of the Confederacy, the whole matter is still in the 
future — is still left to your free will and pleasure. 

But further, there is such a thing as governmental and diplo- 
matic progress. Precedents do not establish right. Privateer- 
ing was formerly regarded as a lawful method of warfare. In 
1856, England and France, and other nations, declared it to be 
piracy. 

Eminent authorities, as Cicero and Grotius, distinctly assert 



10 

this right and duty of discrimination in questions of national re- 
cognition. Cicero says that a body of men, to have a right to be 
regarded as a state or nation, must "be associated under the 
sanction of Justice." And will you set up and welcome to the 
family of nations a government confessedly based upon injustice? 
— based upon a great crime ? — a crime that England has paid 
millions of money to be rid of? — based upon the principle that 
the relation of master and slave is the only natural and right 
social condition ; a people standing as it were upon another 
prostrate people, and proudly boasting of that fact as elevating 
them above the status of other nations ; — a government based 
upon the assumed right of the strong to tyrannize over the weak 
— of the high to oppress, the low — to sell the child from its mo- 
ther — the wife from her husband — the right of the master to hold 
absolute control over the persons of the maid, and the wife — to 
prostitute them to his lecherous desires ; and the right over all 
to scourge them at pleasure; and even the right to sell his own 
children, as our old barbarous Anglo-Saxon ancestors did ? 

But nations do discriminate. The United States Government, 
while under the control of the slave-holding influence, refused to 
recognize Hayti and Liberia ; and the South will always re- 
fuse to recognize them, because the people are Africans. And 
are we bound to recognize a nation that enslaves Africans ? 

And if England cannot recognize them, then it would be a 
mercy to them, and a mercy to the world, to tell them so ; to 
say to them distinctly and clearly, but with as much kindness as 
may be, We can never recognize you as a slave government, 
or enter into commercial treaties with you, even though you do 
win your independence, any more than we could recognize and 
enter into commercial treaties with a nation of pirates or rob- 
bers ; — for what is slavery but robbery, — robbery not of proper- 
ty merely, but of labor ; of personal liberty ; of freedom of 
conscience ; and of all right and chance of social elevation. 

What would be the effect upon the South, if such a course were 
taken? If it really was political independence they wanted, 
they would at once go about emancipating their slaves. Fur- 
ther than this we cannot of course go. If the North should 



11 

give up the struggle, or circumstances come aboul, wliicli. accord- 
ing to the laws and usages of nations, just ily recognition, and the 
South should ask for recognition, on the basis of emancipation, 
fairly and in good faith entered upon, of course no one would have 
any right to object. But without this, no matter if they gain 
their independence, no matter if the North herself recognize 
them, I believe that England would be violating her duty to the 
world, to the cause of freedom, and of civilzation, ever to re- 
cognize or enter into commercial treaties Avith them ; and I 
believe that no time should be lost in giving them to understand 
this, and so removing from them the prop and stimulus of a false 
h.<ape. 

You can have tenfold the influence now against slavery that 
you could after recognition. If you advance you cannot 
recede. If the South be once set up as a nation on an equality 
with other nations, she will resent as an insult any proposition 
or advice in regard to her social institutions. Whatever in- 
fluence you expect to use for the liberation of four million 
Africans, you must use now. Set up slavery, and you cannot 
pull it down : you make it a sovereign power among the 
nations ; you make it respected. It can then reply to you on 
an equal footing ; and it will reply with all the haughtiness of 
its nature. 

And can we doubt that the Confederacy, once established, 
will seek to reopen the slave-trade ? And who could prevent 
it ? If all the naval force of the North cannot prevent ships 
from running the blockade, how could England hope to prevent 
slave-ships from running any blockade she could establish — 
or, at least, could afford to establish — against the slave-trade ? 
It would cost her not a million annually, but twenty or fifty 
millions. Now is the time to prevent the slave-trade. Now is 
the time to abolish slavery. Now is the time to strike a great 
but peaceable blow for freedom and for future peace. All this 
can never be done again so cheaply as now. 

What is the character of the Southern people ? I have looked 
upon it, I believe, with the eye of calm and unprejudiced obser- 
vation, and with due christian charity. And I say it is exactly 



12 

the character which would probably have been yours, and mine, 
and that of nine-tenths of the people of the Northern States, and 
of England, had we been born and educated in like circumstan- 
ces, — been born heirs of slave property, and taught from infancy 
to believe that slavery is right. And yet it is an abnormal char- 
acter, created by slavery ; and can evil bring forth good ? Living 
in the midst of wrong, their natural perceptions of right are dis- 
torted ; their natural sensibilities have become blunted. 

This is but human nature. A person of refined education and 
habits, who never saw animals killed, would be shocked to wit- 
ness the operations in a slaughter-house. Had that same per- 
son been apprenticed in boyhood to a butcher, he would slau§|li- 
ter without remorse, and almost without feeling. Habitu- 
ated from childhood to the exercise of undisputed and absolute 
control over the bodies and wills of those about them, they, as 
a natural consequence, become domineering, proud, irascible, 
and impatient of restraint upon their passions, or their wills. 
And we could not confer a greater favor upon the slave-holder 
himself than to release him from these adverse and corrupting in- 
fluences ; — than to bring him by moral and peaceable means to feel 
his true position, his natural humility as a man, — to feel his 
equality with, and his dependence upon, his fellow-creatures. 
Standing as it were upon the shoulders of their slaves, they 
fancy that they are really so much taller than common men ; so 
much more elevated in their social condition and character. They 
boast that they are the ruling race ; that the North is a nation 
of menials ; that European nations are menials. They describe 
themselves.) in the language of the Richmond Whig, as "a haughty, 
resentful, warlike race ; accustomed to rule, and not to serve ; 
and hating the North with a hatred ineffable." These are 
their own words. They are proud of their character as 
b ullics, defending their " honor," as they term it, even 
in private life and in times of peace, Avith pistols and 
bowie-knives. Even the women partake of this feeling. 
A Southern Congressman, for brutally assaulting, and well- 
nigh murdering a Northern Senator, for exercising the right 
of free speech, is honored and feted by the first ladies in 
Southern society. 



13 

Slavery scoffs at what the world holds sacred ; scoffs at free 
education and social progress. The social pro.irrcss of this ai^o 
to them is retrogression. The Richmond Examiner, than which 
no paper stands higher as an exponent of the doctrines of the 
new Commonwealth, in a very strongly written article on the 
character, mission and destiny of the young State, speaks re- 
peatedly, in scorn and derision, of what it terms this " sanc- 
timonious nineteenth century," and says, with proud con- 
tempt : " The whole current of the world's opinion in this 
exemplary century, and the spirit of this highly respectable age, 
runs strongly and steadily against us." And glorying in 
this antagonism to civilization, and trusting in its own puissant 
and red right arm, which has upheld its independence, and is to 
carve out a glorious future in the world, this young and giant 
Confederation, speaking through this its oracle, goes on to say : 
" We shall be all the more free to run the grand career Avhich 
" opens before us, and to grasp our own lofty destiny.'' " The 
" establishment" — it continues — "the establishment of this con- 
" federacy is verily a distinct reaction against the whole course 
" of the mistaken civilization of the age. For Liberty, Equal- 
" ity. Fraternity, we have deliberately substituted Slavery, 
" Subordination, Government. Those social and political prob- 
" lems which rack and torture modern society, Ave have under- 
'• taken to solve for ourselves, in our own way, and upon our 
" own principles. That there are slave-races born to serve; master- 
" races born to govern; . . such are the fundamental principles which 
" we inherit from the ancient world, and which we lift up in the 
" face of a perverse generation, that has forgotten the wisdom 
" of its fathers." Is not this the language of political fanati- 
cism, that would, if it could, proselyte the world by the sword, 
and spread the blessings of slavery to all the benighted nations 
of Christendom ? Indeed, in this very article, a little further 
on, occur these remarkable words, " Reverently we feel that 
" our Confederacy is a God-sent missionary to the nations, with 
" great truths to preach. We must speak them boldly, and who 
" hath ears to hear let him hear." 



14 

Yerily, tlic prupliot of this new dispcnsatiou must read the 
words of the divine commission with a difterence ; as thus : The 
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me 
to preach the gospel to the rich; he hath sent me to heal the hard- 
hearted; to preach deliverance to tliose who hold their fellows in 
captivity; the recovering of sight to those who are blind to the 
beauties of slavery; and to set at liberty them that bruise. 

Why, they would send missionaries to England to preach re- 
pentance and remission of her great anti-slavery sins, and for 
malignantly depriving her West India colonists of the blessings 
of slavery ; to publish this new code of human riglits, which 
shall displace Magna Charta ; the right of the few to appro- 
priate to their own use and pleasure the labor, the hands, the 
feet, the brains, the hearts, the wills, the entire souls and bodies 
of the many ! 

Is there nothing to fear in the triumph and establishment of 
such a nation as this — ^with such principles ? It would seek to 
reverse the wheels of civilization, and carry the Avorld back 
again into the darkness and barbarism of the middle ages. The 
slave-holders would be the feudal lords. Their ambition un- 
doubtedly was and is to establish a great military power, in 
which, the land being cultivated and the labor performed by the 
slaves, the white population should be left free to follow the 
profession of arms ; the wealthy class furnishing the ofificers, and 
the great mass of the poor whites forming the common soldiers. 
And they would be a powerful, restless and aggressive nation, 
ever seeking to enlarge their boundaries, and to acquire new 
territory for slavery to blight and curse with sterility. Let them 
once be established as a nation, and the peace of mankind would 
never be secure. Either the world would have to combine to 
hold them in check, or they would overrun the West Indies, and 
Mexico, and Central America ; which the South would already 
have done, but for the restraint of the North. 

I do not like to detail the liorrors of slavery, for probably 
there is much misrepresentation in this way. But I have seen 
certain official statements wliich impressed me very strongly. 
Surgeons of the United States army, who have had the examina- 



15 

tion of hundreds aud thousands of freedmcn in llio South, who 
proposed to enter the federal service as soldierri, state that one 
half of them are marked or maimed by physical violence. Some 
are branded, others scarred by whipping, some have been torn 
by dogs, while others are hamstrung, to prevent their running 
away. And yet a very natural thing is tliis disposition to run 
away ; and a thing which all of us, in similar circumstances, would 
feel strongly inclined to put in practice, and think no harm of 
it. But in the code of slavery it is a very vicious inclination, 
and to be punished by scourging, aud prevented by maiming. 
And will the people of England, wdio usually feel inclined to 
take the part of the weak against the strong — of the oppressed 
against the oppressor — Avelcome to the family of nations a gov- 
ernment confessedly and boastfully based upon this same system 
of cruelty, as its " chief corner-stone ? " Is it not a gross mis- 
application of sympathy, to bestow it upon the master instead of 
upon the slave ? 

There is another thing which we may do to shorten this war, 
and to remove its cause ; a thing which to have proposed a few 
years ago would have appeared very chimerical, but which 
events have now rendered practical and easy of accomplishment. 
Christian nations now have slavery in their grasp. We may 
narrow the proposition, and say that England and the Northern 
States of America now have slavery in their grasp, — or even 
England alone. The South rests her hopes of future wealth and 
prosperity chiefly upon the expectation of selling her cotton to 
England. Cotton is to enrich her. Now, suppose England 
should lay a tax upon slave-produced cotton, admitting free- 
cotton free ; or, by some such means, make it to the interest of 
the South, and of each individual planter, to raise free cotton. 
The object of the slave-holder is to make as much as he can out 
of the labor of the negro, whether it be by working him as a 
slave or by paying him wages as a hired laborer. Make it to the 
pecuniary interest of the people of the South to emancipate their 
slaves, either as States or as individuals, and tlicy will do it. 
Discriminate in some way : make free cotton wortli more tliau 
slave cotton, and the slave will be emancipated and set to raise 



16 

free cotton. Precisely how this might best be done, statesmen can 
better tell than myself. But surely it can be done in some way. 

But, suppose Government or Parliament should not think best 
to do anything in the matter, still the people may do it. And 
there is already, to some extent, a feeling with many, that phi- 
lanthropy, justice, and in the end the highest pecuniary policy, 
demand it. 

One of your most eminent commercial statists, and a member 
of Parliament, in an address before the National Association, a 
year ago, used the following language : 

" That to produce our supply of cotton, that portion of the 
" human family that is most defenseless should bo held in the 
" degradation of slavery, is abhorrent to the feelings of the 
" righteous, the humane, and the benevolent." Another of your 
writers remarks, that " all thoughtful politicians have long felt, 
" and felt most justly, that to depend for the maintenance of 
" millions of our population on a cotton supply Avhieh is the fruit 
" of frightful guilt, is at once a disgrace and a peril.'" 

Suppose there were philanthropy enough — or rather a suf- 
ficiently clear perception of ultimate self-interest — in the Brit- 
ish people, and in those of the Northern States of America, to 
induce them to refuse to buy slave cotton at any price, how long 
do you suppose it would be before slavery would be abolished, 
peace restored, and the world have an abundance of cotton, pro- 
duced by free labor ; the labor of emancipated slaves ? You 
would get cotton sooner in this way than in any other ; 
probably months, possibly years sooner ; for it would be the 
means of terminating the war sooner than it will be likely 
otherwise to end. 

Are not the Northern States of America and England ac- 
complices in the guilt of slavery ? To illustrate : I buy stolen 
goods, and by so doing encourage the thief to continue to steal. 
If 1 refused to buy these stolen goods, theft would cease to be 
profitable, and the thief would cease to steal. By continuing 
to l)uy them, then, am I not making myself partaker in the 
crime of theft ? Certainly, I am. Now, here are two great 
enlightened nuunilacliiring nations, the Northern States of 



17 

America and England, professing to regard slavery as a great 
sin. The South is driving the slave with a bloody scourge to 
the production of cotton ; robbing him of his labor and Ida 
rights. Why ? Because these professedly slavery-hating 
nations buy that cotton ; tlie product of that robbery. If tliesc 
people would refuse to buy the products of slavery, of robbery, 
they would make slavery unprofitable. If they would ofier 
only to buy cotton produced by free labor, they would make it 
to the interest of the slave-holder to emancipate his slaves and 
pay them wages. Now, if they do not do this, are they not 
partakers in the crime of slavery, and responsible for its con- 
tinuance ? 

Besides, as was said before, this is an opportune tiuie to 
effect something in this way. Three years ago, when the 
cotton manufactories were all active, to have proposed that we 
should voluntarily cease to buy cotton and stop our mills, for the 
sake of putting an end to slavery, would, at least, have ap- 
peared very chimerical. But Providence has permitted such an 
interruption to take place without our voluntary action. 
Slavery has itself cut off its sale of cotton by inaugurating a 
war for its further extension and aggrandizement. And now 
we have only to say, We will not resume this partnership with 
cruelty ; we will not enter into a new league with death ; wc 
will not remand the slave hack to the cotton-field. The wheels 
of our industry are stopped, and they shall not again be set in 
motion by the motive power and impetus generated by the 
whip of the slave-driver, but by that of free will and wages. 

Now is the time to effect the emancipation and elevation of 
the negro. And he has proved himself worthy of emancipation. 
What tempting opportunities have been enjoyed by thousands 
and tens of thousands of slaves, when escaping, or after esca- 
ping, to the Federal lines in the South, to execute vengeance, and 
retaliate upon their former masters, by burning their property, 
or murdering their families. Yet we hear of no such deeds 
being indulged in by them, however sweet such revenge might 
appear. The African has proved himself to be a peaceable, quiet, 
law-abiding, and inoffensive man ; and yet not at all destitute of 

Q 



18 

courage and heroism, Avhen occasion requires ; — faithful and 
honest as a servant ; and superior in all desirable qualities to 
the low, rowdy class of the white population — to those who perse- 
cute, hunt and hang him in the North. Indeed, we cannot but 
admire his conduct in the trying circumstances in which he has 
recently been placed in America ; and must believe that had he 
the advantages of education and social position, he would be- 
come a noble man, equal to any other race of men. A corres- 
pondent of the New York Herald^ (Sept. 25, 1863, a paper 
which will not admit more than it cannot possibly help in favor of 
the negro) writing from Helena, Arkansas, says of the freedmen, 
to whom Government leased the plantations which had been 
abandoned by their owners near that place : " Some of them will 
" make one thousand, some two, three, four, and even five thous- 
" and dollars for their season's labor. And they will have 
" richly deserved it, for they have labored early and late ; work- 
" ing harder and more industriously, because more hopefully, 
" than when they were slaves." 

Now God is giving us an opportunity to raise this race — four 
millions of them — from degradation and oppression ; an oppor- 
tunity such as we never had before, and can scarcely expect to 
have again. He is giving us an opportunity to break their 
chains by peaceable means — by moral force. Providence has per- 
mitted certain events to occur by which the slave has been re- 
leased, for the time, from his former labor. He has ceased to cul- 
tivate cotton. He has ceased to cultivate the other great staples 
by which the South has been, and hopes again to be enriched. 
Now it is for us — it is for the Northern States of America, and 
for England, to say by our govermental and individual acts, in 
regard to the purchase or the refusal of slave cotton — it is for 
us to say whether he shall return to these spheres of labor or 
not — or whether he shall return to them a slave or a freeman. 
And will we — will England — liberty-loving England — England, 
the friend of the slave — send him back to the cotton-field and 
the rice-field to toil unrequited, under the whip of the slave- 
driver ? — or will we, as we may, by taxing or refusing to buy 
slave produce, break his chain forever, give him back his wife 



19 

and his children, and bid him go and rai^e us cotton 
for wages, and rice for wages, and sugar for wages, 
or for a part of the product of his labor, — free as the birds 
that sing in the fields that he cultivates, and the groves about 
the little hut where his wife and children dwell — subject uo 
longer to be torn from him for the profit, or the pleasure, or the 
passion of the white man ? 

The cotton you worked was the product of oppression and 
cruelty. It was stained with blood, with the blood of men and 
of women. Your prosperity was based upon a great crime. 
God has permitted it to be overturned — its foundation to be 
shaken asunder. Do not attempt to build it up again upon the 
foundation of sand, upon the foundation of unrighteousness. 
But, like the wise man, dig deep, and found it upon the rock — 
the rock of Justice — upon Freedom — upon compensated labor. 

Let England resolve hereafter to have free cotton and no other, 
and the slave's chains will quickly be broken. Why should 
not the manufacturers of England form themselves into a 
Free-Cotton League? It would be a most powerful organ- 
ization. They could thus destroy slavery quicker than 
the guns and bayonets of the North can do it. The pens with 
which they signed their names to such a league would indeed be 
mightier than the swords of the Federals ; winning a bloodless 
victory ; and leaving the pen of the historian of this shocking 
war some less battles to record than he will otherwise have. 

But they would not only be doing a great act of humanity: 
they would also advance their own pecuniary interests ; for they 
would not only get free cotton sooner than slave cotton, but 
cheaper ; for slave cultivation is proved to be more wasteful, 
more exhaustive, and consequently more costly in the end, than 
free cultivation. The Germans, in Texas, before the war broke 
out, it was said, were raising cotton more successfully, and at a 
greater profit, than the slave-holders. Besides, by the emancipa- 
tion and elevation of the slaves, they would become larger con- 
sumers of cotton fabrics, and those, too, of a better quality ; 
thus advancing, and increasing the value of, the mauutacturing 
interest. 



20 

But not only would you get cotton quicker and cheaper, but 
the supply would be more permanent. Any supply of cotton 
from slave labor must necessarily be a precarious supply. If 
peace were proclaimed, and the blockade removed, with slavery, 
the cause of the war, still in existence, whether in union or in dis- 
union, your mills would scarcely get into motion, the nations 
would scarcely get settled down to the ordinary pursuits of 
peace, before your commerce and industry would be liable to be 
again interrupted by war. 

High christian principle here would be the broadest pecuniary 
policy. Would to God that this great truth were impressed 
upon the cars and upon the hearts of my countrymen and of your 
countrymen, and of the civilized world ! Then slavery would 
soon disappear. Then this terrible war, that darkens the sky 
of my native country, and that stains its green hills and fertile 
plains with blood, would soon cease, and peace would return, 
loaded with blessings. Commerce would whiten the Southern 
harbors. Your hungry operatives would again return to their 
spindles and their looms, without fear of war, arising from op- 
pression and wrong, again interrupting their industry ; and you 
would have cotton to spin that a christian man could wear with- 
out compunctions of conscience. 

This is a golden opportunity to secure the freedom of the 
slave, even if war should fail to do it, and it may. And will 
we, for the sake of a little present and precarious profit, ex- 
tracting gold from the blood and the tears of men and women, 
let this opportunity, which an all-wise and beneficent Provi- 
dence is giving us, to secure freedom to the slave and future 
peace to the world — will we let it pass unimproved ? If we do, 
as we profess to be Christians — and as He is a God of Mercy 
and of Justice — He will hold us to account for it. 

Is it said that the arms of the North, aided by the slaves or 
freedmcn, will bring emancipation ? This seems probable, if the 
Republican party continue in power, and if the emancipation 
policy be persevered in. But even then, if no other agency or 
influence be brought to bear, it will probably be a work of years, 
of terrible and bitter war, in which tens of thousands and per- 



21 

haps huiuli-cds of thousands of the shivcs themselves will perish, 
and during- which scenes will be enacted to turn the heart of 
humanity sick. We know the privations and sulVerings to which 
the Avar has reduced some parts of the South. Of course, these 
privations fall first and heaviest upon the slaves. We have the 
best evidence that many have already died of want ; while some 
have been hung, and others burnt alive, for the real or suspect- 
ed "crime" of rendering aid or information to the Federals, or 
of seeking their own liberty. And these horrors will go on in- 
creasing as the war advances. We are bound, then, us friends of 
the slave, to bring to bear every influence within our power to 
shorten the bloody struggle. 

The slaves would be far better off if emancipated by a peacea- 
ble act of the South herself, with the consent and cooperation 
of their masters, still remaining to cultivate the lands they for- 
merly cultivated, in a climate suited to their nature, than they 
would be torn away by the violence of war, and brought in con- 
tact and competition with the negro-hating and negro-hanging 
mobs of the North. 

It is but justice to say that these negro-persecuting mobs are 
composed only of the very lowest class in the Northern cities ; a 
very few rowdy Americans, together with the lower class of 
catholic Irish. This is well known to all acquainted with the 
facts. Germans are rarely or never concerned in them. 

Are any ready to say that the war is already nearly ended 1 
If we are going to take back slavery to our embrace ; if we are 
going to give up the emancipation policy, which alone can, in any 
degree, redeem the war, in the sight of God and of good men, 
then it may be nearly ended. But if we are not going to do 
this, then I believe the South will struggle long and des])erately 
yet, unless their hope of recognition be cut off — or unless the 
pecuniary value of slavery be destroyed, by our action against 
slave cotton. 

If it be said, then, that war will bring emancipation, and so 
work out peace, I reply that these influences would help to bring 
it, — might bring it, if war should fail ; and in any case would 
tend to bring it sooner than it Avould otherwise come ; and con- 



22 

scqueiitly wo, as pliilanihropists, as professors of the religion of 
peace, and as friends of the slave, arc bound to do onr utmost 
to briuir these influences to bear. 

In this peaceable movement against slavery all classes of 
Englishmen may join, whether they sympathize with the North 
or with the South; whether they would see union or disunion; 
for all chisses of Englishmen hate slavery, and believe that its 
removal by peaceable means would be a great blessing, not only 
to the slave, but also to the master: and its removal by peace- 
able means Avould stop the bloody work of removing it by the 
sword; and all classes of Englishmen long to see peace restored. 

The removal of slavery must, in any case, tend to shorten the 
duration of the war. For consider. There are, of course, but 
two ways in which this war can terminate : either, first, in the 
North alloAving the independence of the South; or, secondly, in 
the South submitting to the North. In the first case, namely, 
that the South is to be independent, the manumission of the 
slaves by the Southern people themselves would have a powerful 
effect upon the people of the North, or at least upon a large 
portion of the best of them, to reconcile them to the indepen- 
dence of the South, and to induce them to cease to make war 
upon the South, at least much sooner than they would otherwise 
do. In the latter case, that is, if the South is to submit to the 
North, slavery being removed would leave one less object for 
the South to fight for, and that the principal object ; so that 
they would be likely to cease to struggle against the North 
much sooner than they would if they still had slavery to defend 
and uphold. Besides, the removal of slavery would tend to 
secure future peace to America, and to the world. And it 
only requires the united and earnest action of the people of 
England to eft'ect this. 

This is an inexpressibly important crisis. More can bo done 
now toi- the removal of slavery than could be done in a century 
of ordinary times ; more than can be done in a century to come, 
if the South be once recognized and established as an indepen- 
dent slave power among the nations. Slavery is now tottering, 
ready to fall. It needs but the united and earnest action of 



23 

the people of Enijland to overturn it ; to overturn it l)y moral 
force ; to overturn it without bloodshed. England ! what a 
high position do you, or rather may you, occupy ! By your 
peaceable action at home, you may give freedom to four millions 
of oppressed Africans ; you may give peace to a continent dis- 
tracted by war. No doubt the condition of posterity, the peace 
of future ages, depends upon the removal of slavery ; perhaps 
upon your action in regard to it now. 

I cannot hope to " reach the hight of this great argument." 
Language is feeble to convey the weight and magnitude of the 
thoughts. People of England, friends of humanity, and of social 
reform, cast in, I beseech you, your united and earnest influence 
for justice, for freedom, for peace. It is not alone my voice 
that appeals to you. To the ear of enlightened reason and 
humanity come the voices of those who are suffering through the 
influence of war or of slavery ; the voices of thousands, some of 
them members of the Society of Friends, and others con- 
scientiously opposed to war, who are forced unwillingly into 
the Southern and into the Northern armies, to be butchered in 
battle, or to die of disease in filthy camps or in crowded or un- 
ventilated hospitals ; the voices of mothers mourning over the 
loss of their sons, and of thousands of children made orphans. 

All high and holy considerations — humanity, patriotism, 
philanthropy, religion — urge us to use our influence to stop this 
war, and to stop it by the removal of slavery, its cruel cause, its 
removal by peaceable means. Would you do this ? Would 
you restore your industry and commerce to their former con- 
dition ? Would you have a quick supply of cotton not liable to 
be interrupted by future wars arising from the same cause ? 
Then resolve to have no more slave cotton, and cut off all 
hope of recognition in the South, by distinctly informing thera 
that you can never welcome to the brotherhood of nations a 
government based upon slavery ; whose foundation principle is 
the right of robbery ; whose wealth is extracted by torture, oi 
the fear of torture, from the blood and sweat of the African 
bondman. 



24 

The true and disinterested anti-slavery people in America, 
conscious from the beginning of the struggle of their own high 
motives, conscious that their great object was the freedom of 
the slave, felt that they had a right to sympathy ; and not suffi- 
ciently considering that the Government, and the majority of 
those Avlio supported the war, did not come out at once upon the 
great principle of emancipation, they did not understand, or did 
not stop to consider, why the people of England did not give 
tlieir entire sympathy and support to the North. Hence there 
grew up a feeling that England was their enemy, and wished 
them all possible harm. I have heard some of the best men in 
America say this, and say it, too, more in sorrow than in anger. 
They think that the people of England have lost their anti- 
slavery principles. They do not, I believe, sufficiently consider, 
either, that the people of England regard war, too, as a great 
evil, as well as slavery, and would have greatly preferred to see 
emancipation brought about by other means, by remuneration, 
as in the case of their own West India slaves. 

It would be a most happy thing, if all this difference and 
hardness of feeling between the people of the two coun- 
tries could be removed, and they brought to feel that each 
is, at heart, the friend of the other, and to harbor no suspicion 
or uucharitableness. It might be the means of preventing war 
between brethren. 

There should be a careful discrimination made between the 
two parties in the North — the anti-slavery and the pro-slavery 
parties. It is a fact which none will dispute, that most of the 
abuse of England, especially in former years, came from the 
South or from the })ro-slavery party in the North. These have 
always been ready for war, and especially ready for war with 
England ; and if they are the peace party now, it is only for the 
occasion, dictated by policy, and for the sake of slavery. They 
are not peace men, in any proper sense of the word, but war 
men. 

It is also a fact which none will dispute, that the Republican, 
or anti-slavery party, embraces a majority of the best portion of 
tiie Northern poi)ulution, the most intelligent and moral, the 



supporters of temperance, of sanitary improvement, and eveiy 
other social reform. The Democratic, or pro-slavery party of 
the North, that always voted with the South, though it embraces 
a few very good men, is chiefly made up of the lower elements. 
It embraces almost the entire foreign catholic population, to- 
gether with the rough and turbulent native American element. 
This is the negro-hating party of the North, and the lowest 
members of it are the negro-hangers of New York. This party, 
and the South, have always been the anti-English party, the 
fillibustering party, the war party. It was this party that drew 
the nation into war with England in 1812: New England was 
opposed to that war. It was this party that made war upon 
Mexico, to acquire slave territory ; the majority of the North 
was also opposed to that war. And it is a simple historical 
fact, that most of the diplomatic troubles betAveen England and 
America have occurred under the reign of that party, caused by 
the domineering and overbearing spirit of slavery, or by the 
hatred which a certain foreign element of the party bears to 
England, and the wicked disposition of its leaders, for party pur- 
poses, to take advantage of, and encourage, that hatred. And 
now the great newspaper-organ of this party, published in New 
York, with an immense circulation, but which is read by but 
few of the better citizens, except for the news it contains — this 
great mouthpiece of the low pro-slavery classes of the North, 
like a wild beast thirsting and howling for blood, is almost daily 
trying to stir up the passions of its readers in favor of war with 
England. 

Of one thing you may rest assured, that if there is in America 
any respect or love for England, it is in the Eepublican 
party, the anti-slavery party of the North ; and especially in 
the New England States. New England and Old England are 
worthy of each other. The sun, in his course, shines not upon 
a better people, more enlightened, more humane, progressive, 
and philanthropic, than the people of these two countries. May 
they ever be friends, and aid each other in the advancement of 
civilization and social reform. And it is only slavery, the 
habit of domineering and ruling, with absolute sway, over the 



26 

slaves, that has corrupted the Southern people, and made them 
what they are. Let us help them to remove it ; help them to 
break the thraldom of the demon that enchains them ; and 
stand up among the nations a free, tolerant, progressive 
people, as they iiave proved themselves to be a brave one. 

We sec in America the folly and the sin of war. We have 
already considered how much wiser and more Christian-like it 
would have been for the North, instead of spending hundreds 
of millions of money in war, and sacrificing hundreds of thou- 
sands of lives, to have at least offered, through the mediation and 
with the cooperation of England and other nations, to remove 
the cause of war, by paying the South for her slaves. Even if 
we had paid their full market value, it would have been cheaper 
than war has been. But what of the South ? what proportion 
of the responsibility for the war rests there ? There perhaps 
never was a great and powerful nation that entered upon 
war more reluctantly than the North did. Strange, as it may 
seem, yet it is true, that a large part of the anti-slavery people 
of the North, and especially of New England, were believers in 
the principles of peace. And they do not now regard this as a 
war in the ordinary sense of the word ; but as the efforts of a 
body of police, in the legitimate discharge of their duty, 
endeavoring to suppress a riot, and to enforce order and 
obedience to civil law. 

However we may regard the abstract right of secession (and 
the writer is one who believes that for a cause, which, in the 
judgment of Christendom, is just and sufficient, secession would 
be right, and should be peaceably permitted), yet we cannot over- 
look the motive which prompted the South to secede, and which, 
according to their own words, already quoted, was, that they 
might have liberty to enslave their fellow-creatures perpetually, 
and over unlimited territory ; that they might have liberty, 
not to exercise any just right, but liberty to do Avrong, 
and what all civilized nations, and especially the people 
of England, regard as Avrong. To secede for such a cause 
as this, can be no more regarded as right, than it would 
Vie right for a body of people to secede from, or rebel against, 



27 

their government, that they might exercise the liberty of steal- 
ing, or committing any other violation of Divine or human law. 
But a community of thieves would scarcely be regarded as 
justifiable in " seceding " that they might steal with impunity. 
The case is very simple. If slavery is right, then I believe the 
South is right (in seceding, but not in making war). If slavery 
is wrong, then assuredly the South is wrong. 

Had the South with any degree of decent politeness, or res- 
pect, asked to be allowed peacably to withdraw from the Union, 
and had shown, by a fair vote, freely taken, in the several states, 
that the majority of the people of those states wished to separate 
from the North, we have the highest evidence to believe that it 
would have been granted. Many of the leading Republican jour- 
nals, among them the New York Tribune, advocated this course. 
But the South proudly and contemptuously set the Government at 
defiance. The North saw the national custom-houses in the 
South taken possession of, and the Government officers turned 
out ; and they forbore to resort to force. They saw the forts 
seized and manned against the Government ; they saw hostile 
forts being built up, at Charleston, for weeks, under the very 
guns of the one only fort that remained in the possession of Gov- 
ernment; and still they forbore to resort to war: and it was 
not till that lone fort and its little garrison of less than one 
hundred men was deliberately beleaguered and bombarded by a 
force of seven thousand men in surrounding fortresses, that had 
been built up through their forbearance, — it was not till then 
that the North was brought to accept war. Who, then, is res- 
ponsible for the beginning of this terrible struggle, this bloody 
work ? And who most sins against God and the peace of socie- 
ty, the man who offers the first insult, and strikes the first blow, 
or the man who, being insulted and smitten, smites back again } 
Though the course taken by the North was not that which 
seemed to me to be dictated by the highest principles of Chris- 
tianity, yet I doubt if any great and sensitive people would, un- 
der the circumstances, have acted more dispassionately. 

The people of the South, accustomed to the use of fire-arms, 
even in private life, and accustomed to domineer over the slaves, 



28 

and over others in the way of tlieir imperious will, in the blind 
and mistaken spirit of war, first drew the sword. And have 
thej not " perished by the sword "? Their young men and their 
chief councillors have fallen, and their cities are left desolate. 
This vast country, North and South, was peaceful and happy. 
The sun shone upon no land more lovely — none with brighter 
sky or more fertile soil. Only the blight of slavery was upon 
it ; and that they might extend and perpetuate that blight, they 
invoked War, — tit coadjutor of slavery, — and he came : 



" Lo ! where the giant on the mountain : 

His blood-red locks still deepening in the sun, 
With death-shot glowing in his fiery hands ; 
And eye that scorcheth all it glares upon : 

while at his iron feet 

Destruction cowers, to mark what deeds are done." 

And now, instead of prosperity and happiness, desolation and 
mourning are over the land. The smoke from a hundred fields 
of carnage rises up and hides the bright sun in heaven. 

" Death rides upon the sulphury siroc, 
1 Red Battle stamps his foot, and nations feel the shock." 

Not only America, but England and France, and all the nations 
of Christendom feel the shock of this terrible war. It has already 
cost the North more than would have paid the South for her 
slaves — cost the South, in money, property and human life, more 
than all her slaves were worth ; and now it threatens to extend 
and involve other nations. 



V60 






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